


Hobbies

by RobinPlaysTrumpet15



Series: Obi-Wan "The Therapist" Kenobi and How He Changed Everything [4]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, CC-2224 | Cody Needs a Hug, Crying, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hobbies, Hurt/Comfort, Mentions of Character Death, Painting, Post-Episode: s04e10 Carnage of Krell, do not copy to another site, emotional breakdown
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-05
Updated: 2020-01-05
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:07:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22123060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RobinPlaysTrumpet15/pseuds/RobinPlaysTrumpet15
Summary: The 212th has started to take Obi-Wan's comments about hobbies seriously. Or, most of them have, anyway. Cody finds himself a little left in the dust.Set post S4xE10 - The Carnage of KrellCanon Divergence
Series: Obi-Wan "The Therapist" Kenobi and How He Changed Everything [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1584874
Comments: 59
Kudos: 1161





	Hobbies

**Author's Note:**

> Yooooo! Man, sometimes you write a story and other times? Other times, the characters grab you by the wrist and drag you along for the ride. I didn't choose a single thing that happened in this story. The characters merely did as they pleased and used me as the vessel with which to put their story into words.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you like this. It took less than a day to write and is currently the longest installment of this entire series and honestly? I wouldn't have it any other way.

Cody is a little surprised by just how quickly change comes for the 212th. What’s interesting (or not, Cody’s not quite sure) is how extremely subtle it is at first. The new schedule of group therapy in the evenings and keeping the derogatory comments about clones in check didn’t change anything on the battlefield. Or, it didn’t seem to. Not in the beginning, anyway.

The biggest change is how afterwards, when they’d lost brothers, General Kenobi actively encourages them to mourn - because it’s sad. Yes, they are soldiers in a war, bred and raised to fight and die. That does not change the fact that they are also people. People with thoughts and feelings, hopes and dreams. Cody tried to keep a certain amount of distance between himself and the losses they amassed. It keeps him sane and ready at a moment’s notice to be the leader this battalion (and the systems army at large for that matter) needs him to be.

Which is why… why he keeps pushing thoughts of Waxer away.

He doesn’t want those. He doesn’t want to think about Waxer. He doesn’t want to examine the feelings that threaten to choke him at any given second. They tighten his chest and clog his throat and sting his eyes and shake his hands and-

No. He shoves the feelings back again, locking them away where they belonged: in the box labeled _Someday_.

And _Someday_ is certainly not today.

Despite Cody’s own, personal hang ups about it, many of the others are embracing the changes. The shinies in particular are doing better about grieving for their fallen brothers. What is a little odd, though, is how much quicker they seem to bounce back. They grieve, they talk together - both in private and in their group sessions - they cry some and hug one another. Then after some time, they seem alright. In comparison to some of the more veteran troopers, it’s almost like they recover at lightspeed.

Cody can’t quite make heads or tails of that, but he assumes it has something to do with how new and fresh they are. It wouldn’t work that way for someone like Cody. Cody has seen too much. Done too many things. Lost too many people.

But the permitted and encouraged mourning isn’t the only new thing. He begins to notice something out of place about the barracks. They aren’t immaculately clean and spotless anymore. Not in the fact that they’re dirty, per se, but in the way that they aren’t cold and bland and lifeless. There are books lying around, stacked in corners and along walls. Empty bunks are used as storage areas until otherwise needed. There are drawers of non-regulation civvie clothes, and the men lounge together in them in their downtime often. They aren’t just a sea of standard-issue blacks anymore.

About two weeks into the new schedule, Cody finds a paint set on the empty storage bunk of the officers’ barracks. It doesn’t look new, exactly, but it certainly hasn’t been used much. The paints are little tubes of nice acrylics, with labels declaring them things like Cobalt Teal and Titanium White and Cadmium Red. The tubes are all stored in a little case that is also home to a number of different brushes. Some are large and some are small. Others are wide and fanned out while some are literally so thin Cody isn’t sure they would be good for much.

Clearly, what the general had said about painting is being taken to heart. Cody has yet to see any evidence that the paint has been used and there don’t seem to be any art projects lying around. But honestly? The idea’s intriguing.

Rather quickly after the paints appeared, so did other things. Suddenly there are quite a few notebooks and journals sitting around. They lay out on bunks and sit hidden beneath pillows. They’re clutched in troopers’ hands or lying open and being scribbled in on tables or thighs. Way too many pens to count also start popping up as if they just pop into existence. Unfortunately, it seems that just as soon as they appear, they are magically gone. Cody is certain that the next time someone (i.e. Ahsoka or Obi-Wan) crawls around in the vents, they’d be found. Or wherever it is the cleaning droids dump their trash. Cody could only imagine the amount of pens that have already ended up there.

The only thing irritating about that is that the paper journals and physical pens are completely unnecessary. Each man is equipped with a wrist unit that allows them to keep a journal if one so chooses. Cody had mentioned the thought in passing to Obi-Wan once, but the man had just smiled and said this:

“Well, for some people, the feeling of physically writing one’s thoughts and emotions down is more helpful than just typing them up like it’s a report.”

Cody supposes he has to concede that point to the man. He’d thought, briefly, about whether or not he should try it.

But then… Cody’s not sure what exactly he would put in a journal even if he had one, and the idea was dropped. He’s fine as he is, anyway. If he wants to write about his thoughts, he’ll type them in his personal documents on his datapad. End of story.

It takes Cody an embarrassingly long time to notice, but once he does, he can’t believe how… _blind_ he’s been.

There aren’t any paintings or pictures lying around because the art itself is literally _standing right next to him_. 

And really, he should have seen this coming. It isn’t the first time he’d heard of it or even seen it, so why he hadn’t thought of it is totally beyond him. But it stares him down, plain as day, from the shoulder pad of Sergeant Sink’s plastoid armor. It is remarkably well done, Cody has to give him that for certain.

There on his shoulder is a little picture in acrylic paint. The whole pauldron is yellow, as plenty of the 212th’s are, but overtop of the yellow-gold paint are delicate blue waves. They have a highlight of light blue along their tips and lines of dark blue beneath them. An orange sun sets in the background behind the waves, accompanied by a small hump of tan ground. A tiny, stupidly detailed tree stands talls from the ground, covered in splotches of dark and light green paint.

He’d seen brothers paint little tags and pictures on their armor before, but it rarely happened in this battalion. He’d seen a little… whatever it was - some cartoon character - on Fives’ bucket before. But that had felt normal in the way that the 501st always sort of did what they pleased.

~~Waxer had Numa on his helmet.~~

But this is new. At least, to Cody it is.

He doesn’t say anything about it to Sink, because really, what’s the point? But after he noticed it, he couldn’t stop noticing it.

The rookies still don’t paint their armor - not past the regular yellow stripes that marked them as a part of the battalion. But for many of the older brothers, a new practice had started without Cody even noticing.

It becomes quite normal to see one or two, sometimes even whole groups of men sitting together with various colors and shades of paint spread out between them. They work together on touching up the gold spots that get scratched up. The standard yellow is a different kind of paint - long-lasting and durable - but the new additions are nearly always acrylics.

Brothers become distinguishable from one another past just the placement of their yellow. Troopers and squads from different companies suddenly have matching little tags, claiming them to certain platoons or some other contingent. Nearly all of Wave Platoon has _shonar_ written down their forearms in a sort of misty gray that reminds Cody of the haze on Kamino. Technically, Wave is the official name for the platoon, but _Shonar_ is the Mando’a translation. Many of the men privately regard that as the actual name.

That one, Cody really likes, actually. A few of the platoons have unofficial “official” names in Mando’a. A couple of them are the actual names, like _Werda_ Platoon in Ghost Company and _Udesla_ in Ocean. Others are more of a private thing between the clones themselves, known by their immediate commanding officers, and have official public names to be used out in the field around other battalions and regiments.

Cody isn’t sure when that started, but it’s nice to see the togetherness their shared experiences bring about. He also personally prefers the connection to their heritage. He likes to think Jango would approve.

Cody also finds that General Kenobi seems extremely pleased with these new developments. Cody has watched more than just a few conversations in group therapy where brothers would show off their creations and hard work to the man, who looks over each new piece with unrivaled interest and devotion. It’s actually quite a sight to behold. It evokes a certain sort of warmth in Cody’s chest that he isn’t sure what to do with.

He and Obi-Wan have become close in the past couple years, but to watch him interact with Cody’s brothers like he’s one of them… well, it makes Cody smile.

It’s perhaps the fourth Zhellday since their no-longer-new schedule had been implemented when Cody is finally confronted about the new painting practice.

Cody has taken to joining Obi-Wan for at least one session every evening, mostly to help keep everything running smoothly and to offer moral support where necessary. The first session of the evening on Zhellday has only six squads in it, only one of which is from Ghost Company. The group had recently renamed themselves the Gladioli Squad and are one of the four in Waxer’s former platoon. Boil is in this session.

Cody hasn’t been avoiding Boil, exactly, but… well, he and Waxer had been best friends. More than best friends. And if Cody could classify anyone as his friends, those two had certainly been his.

It’s been nearly a month since Umbara and Waxer-

Cody swallows the thought again. This may be group therapy, but it isn’t _his_ group therapy night. (Even when it was, those thoughts were pushed as far away as possible.) So now isn’t the time to think about it. (Never sounds like a good time to Cody.)

But as the first half of the session comes to an end and the group breaks off into their own squads, Cody hears his name being called.

“Cody!”

“Cody, come here!”

“Cody, come join us!”

Gladioli Squad. Of course.

Obi-Wan smiles at him and shoves lightly at his shoulder to aim him towards the group.

The squad is still smaller than normal. They’d lost three troopers and their sergeant. Boil seems to be running the squad just fine on his own for the moment, even with just the six of them. They’ll need to reassign some shinies soon, Cody thinks idly.

That’s not important right now. He’s only stalling.

Cody trudges his way over to them, hoping he doesn’t seem too unwilling.

“Gladiolis,” he greets neutrally. “What’s up?”

“We’d like you to join us for the rest of the time,” one of the younger brothers offers. He’d been around long enough to have his yellow stripes come away just a tad scratched around the edges. His name might be Gamer, but Cody can’t quite remember.

“If you want to, that is, Commander,” Boil adds.

Something in the looks he finds himself fixed with - something in Boil’s eyes - has Cody unable to say no. He nods, and goes to grab a chair. He pulls it over to the group and situates himself between Boil and Threepwood.

The conversation starts off pretty normal. The seven of them talk together about things they’d started filling their free time with: friendly sparring, reading, writing, painting. Gamer even tells them about how he’d gotten to show off the new art pieces on his armor at 79’s during their last stop on Coruscant just last week. Apparently, there had been pleasant reactions all around. Cody is happy to hear that.

“What about you, Codes?” Boil asks as he leans forward and presses the boundaries of Cody’s personal space. This is normal, though. It’s just how Boil is; teasing and very physically present.

“I’ve been…” Cody starts, wracking his brain for an answer.

Truth is, he hasn’t taken up anything new. He stands with a little less tension in his posture, but that might be it. Sometimes he and General Kenobi sit down to talk for awhile as just the two of them, and while Cody enjoys those talks, he isn’t about to discuss them with his brothers. They’re personal, and Cody isn’t overly proud of how he’d broken down in front of the man the first time he’d been faced with this new reality of mattering as a person.

But that’s it. Cody doesn’t paint or draw or read anything other than reports. He doesn’t write about his feelings or put his thoughts into poems or anything like that. He doesn’t sing like Tune said he’d started trying, and he hasn’t joined any others to play the small games of sports some brothers had started in the training gym.

He’d never thought about it before, because they’d all just done the exact same things, but _Force_ Cody is boring. At least, compared to how much all his other brothers seem to be doing now. They’re all out there, expressing their feelings and learning who they are and who they want to be as people and Cody’s just…

Cody. Cody is Commander of the 212th Attack Battalion. He leads “A” Squad of _Werda_ Platoon in Ghost Company and helps General Kenobi plan attacks and battle strategies. He types up and reads through reports until his eyes hurt or until someone has to drag the general away from his own reports. He cares about his Jedi (maybe more than he should) and his brothers and rolls his eyes when they do stupid shit that could get them killed. He follows orders and protocol and-

Wow, that makes him sound like Dogma. That isn’t a _bad_ thing but…

Cody isn’t sure who Cody really was.

“Codes?” Boil’s voice suddenly cuts through his thoughts and brings him back out of his head.

“I’m uh, not sure. I haven’t really… tried anything yet,” he admits. He tries to make it sound less like he’s avoiding it, and more like he just isn’t sure what to try first. Because otherwise he’s just a hypocrite.

In the past four weeks, he’s suggested more activities to other _vode_ when they felt down than he cares to keep track of. And yet, there he is, doing nothing. Trying nothing.

“No?” Threepwood asks.

“Oh! I’ve got a book you might like!” Gamer offers.

“I’ve been looking into learning to read Coruscanti music. You could join me,” Tune suggests, his expression open and excited.

“Me and a few guys were gonna play keepaway before lights out tonight,” Threepwood says.

Cody shakes his head, turning down all the offers. He’s not ungrateful for all the options and opportunities, really. “No, thank you. I think-”

“You haven’t painted anything on your armor,” Boil notices, suddenly.

He startles briefly, needing to take a second and join his brother on whatever trasnport he’d just jumped onto.

“No, I haven’t-”

“You know, I’ve been meaning to add a new piece to mine,” Boil continues. “I know the perfect spot for it.”

“Okay?”

“Why don’t you join me? We’ll just sit and talk or whatever for a while. Just relax and not have to worry about anything for a bit.” Boil has that look in his eyes again, similar to the one from before. The one Cody wasn’t able to say no to. “What do you say, Codes?”

Cody hesitates only a second before giving into that look again. He nods and works just the barest tilt of a smile onto his lips.

“Yeah, sure.”

“Great!” Boil cheers. The rest of Gladioli Squad joins in, too. “You’ve got the busier schedule, so you tell me when’s good and we’ll do some armor painting.”

“Well, unless we get attacked, I should be free tomorrow before lights out.”

“Tomorrow at 1900 hours, then?”

Cody thinks silently, then nods.

“Yeah. Sounds good.”

*

This will be the first time Cody has spent time alone with Boil since Waxer- since before Umbara. He isn’t nervous, no matter what the churning in his gut has to say about it. No, he certainly isn’t nervous about spending time with his own brother. Especially not a brother he’s fairly close with.

It’s just going to be a little… weird, is all. But it shouldn’t be!

Just because Waxer isn’t-

Cody just about kicks himself. He shakes his head as if flinging the thoughts far away from his mind, and continues down the hall.

He and Boil agreed to meet in a secluded little area of the barracks. It’s an odd, small room. It actually has couches and chairs that aren’t terribly uncomfortable. It had always existed and had always been used, but it’s been getting more use than ever these past weeks. Before, it had seemed almost as if they weren’t supposed to use it, so any time spent in the room was tense and uncomfortable. Obi-Wan and the other commanding officers have been encouraging the use of the room recently, though, so the atmosphere has changed almost drastically.

No one’s in there when Cody arrives - not even Boil. Thankfully, it isn’t long before the younger man arrives.

He’s not wearing his armor, but a comfortable looking, long black top and soft black pants. They don’t resemble the undersuits the plates of their armor attach to in any way. It’s almost disorienting. Cody finds he’s still getting used to seeing the _vode_ in clothes that aren’t regulation and standard-issue.

Boil carries just the gauntlet and vambrace of his left arm with him, but no other portions of his armor. In his right hand is a little pack of what Cody assumes are paints and brushes.

“Alright, Cod’ika,” Boil greets him with a half-smirked, teasing smile. “You ready to do some painting?”

Cody scowls at him. There’s no heat behind his gaze, but he glares anyway.

“I’m older than you,” he points out.

Boil shrugs and settles heavily on the floor. He gets comfortable on the durasteel floor, right in front of the couch Cody had claimed.

“Oh well,” he counters, unbothered. “Well, if you’re gonna paint anything, you might want to actually take that armor off.”

Cody looks down at the plastoid-alloy plates of his arms almost worriedly.

What if he doesn’t like whatever he paints on them? What if it isn’t good and it just looks dumb? He doesn’t want his armor to be ruined, after all. But… worse still, what if he _does_ like it? That thought’s a little scary. Cody’s almost not sure how he’s _supposed_ to like things. How will he know if he likes it?

“You’re thinking too hard, _vod’ika_ ,” Boil chastises absently as he sets out the tubes of paint. They look a little different from the ones Cody had found in his own barracks.

Maybe he is thinking too hard…

“Do you know what you’re gonna paint?” Boil asks, still not looking at Cody. Cody isn’t sure if he’s doing it on purpose or not, but something about the lack of eye contact helps leech the staticky tension out of his spine.

“No…” Cody says, being purposefully vague. “I was just going to touch up my stripes, I guess. This one’s getting really-”

“No, Codes, I mean-” Boil huffs a sigh. “Don’t you want to add anything new?”

“New? I mean- no, I don’t-”

“Can I tell you what I was going to paint?”

Okay, that was sudden.

“Sure,” Cody agrees. He hates how quiet his voice is when he speaks.

Boil leans back against the couch, still not facing Cody. He holds his vambrace up high enough for Cody to see its unpainted - though, not unmarked - white surface.

“I miss him…” Boil starts softly, “and everything feels weird without him here…”

A lump forms quickly in Cody’s throat. It hurts like a _shabuir_.

“We’ve lost _vode_ before… We’ve lost plenty of friends and brothers, comrades and squadmates, and that hurts. But this is… different. _He_ was different.”

Cody gets the distinct feeling that Boil is waiting for a response, but Cody couldn’t have answered even if he wanted to. He can’t even think of anything to say.

“Waxer wouldn’t look past someone who needed up.” Boil’s voice is a little tight on the statement. He chuckles. The sound is more sad, than amused. There’s a wetness there that Cody ignores. “Do you remember that time on Ryloth?”

He does.

Boil recounts it to him anyway.

“We were scouting and got lost. We were separated from the rest of you. But we’d found this little girl. Or- maybe she found us. She was just a stick of a thing and I- I would have just left her. I didn’t think she was worth our time. But Waxer… he couldn’t just leave her there alone. He gave her a ration bar and then she just started following us.”

Cody stares hard at the back of Boil’s head.

“Her name is Numa. Waxer and that little girl- they kinda knocked me over the head. They’re the ones who’d shown me that others matter, no matter that they look different or that I can’t understand their language. Waxer was _good_ and I miss him. Like if someone had taken my leg. I feel like I’m just limping by on crutches, missing something so vital.”

Cody’s vision blurs until he can’t see. His throat burns, hot and irritated. He sucks in a silent breath, hoping to calm the feeling. All it does is make his lungs ache. The world around him goes even more watery and fuzzy.

Boil sounds a little sniffly now, too. “Numa called us _nerra_. General Kenobi told us after that it means brother. I don’t know if I’m ever going to see that little girl again, but if I do, I know what I’d say to her.”

Cody can’t help but ask.

“What’s that?” His voice is tight and croaky, but he almost doesn’t care.

“Thank you,” Boil all but whispers.

Boil isn’t a soft person by any means, and the new change in demeanor seems odd. Though, Cody can’t help but think it’s appropriate for the situation. He’s not sure how _else_ Boil should have been acting while talking about Waxer.

(Cody hates how he’s still analyzing everything like it even fucking matters.)

“Numa means sister,” Boil continues, “and I wish I’d known that back then. But I’m glad I do now.”

He coughs a bit, clearing his throat and attempting to compose himself.

“So I was going to put _nerra_ right here-” he runs his index finger across the length of the plastoid, “and _vod’ika_ right below that. I want it to be pretty and bright and colorful, because she was. And Waxer made the world look like that, too…”

Cody almost doesn’t feel shame in the tears that slip down his cheeks and clog his throat so he couldn’t breathe.

“What do you think?” Boil asks. His tone is so open and genuine, Cody can’t take it. He sounds vulnerable, which he supposes he probably is right that moment. That was a lot of shit he just unloaded.

For a moment, Cody can’t respond. Then, _finally_ , he gets his voice to work with him again - just in time for him to growl out: “Force, _dammit, Boil!_ ”

Boil does a sort of jump, which in any other scenario would be utterly hilarious. But Cody can’t find the humor in it. He’s crying and he hurts all over and all he wants is his brother back so they can hold him and tell him everything’s alright. He wants to show him all the things they’re changing.

Boil turns quickly and stares up at Cody with those wide brown eyes almost every trooper shares. These ones are different, though. They’re all Boil.

“Cody-!”

Cody finds himself curled up on the couch cushion. He has no idea when he pulled his feet up with him, or when he’d lost his boots that had been kicked to the floor. His gauntlets are gone, too. He holds them, fingering the fabric and plastoid for something to do.

Sobs rip out of his chest without permission. He hates how the feeling tickles his nose and burns his throat. It feels like acid and fire and just makes the tears and the building headache so much _worse_.

Before he even realizes it, words are pouring out of him.

“I was doing so _well!_ I was doing _fine_ not thinking about it! _I don’t want to think about it!_ I miss him and I hate that it was friendly fire that killed him! I hate _Krell_ for getting him killed!” Cody drags the palms of his hands over his cheeks and eyes a couple times, wishing the heat in his skin would just _go away_.

“I miss _all of them!_ Every trooper, every man, every _brother_ \- I _miss_ them. It was so much easier not thinking about them! But this makes it real! Talking about it makes it real and I don’t want it to be!”

“Cody-”

“But everyone else seems so fine! Absolutely _fucking okay!_ They talk about it and they read or they spar or they scream just for no reason or they fucking _paint_ and I can’t do _any_ of that!”

As he drag in another unsteady breath, Boil finds his chance to interject.

“Why can’t you?” he asks, derailing anything more Cody was about to say. He stands, taller than Cody now. He leans forward into his older brother’s personal space and forces their eyes to meet again. “What’s stopping you? There is nothing the rest of us can do that you can’t, Cody.”

“Because-” Cody’s voice breaks on the word. He shakes his head and looks away from Boil.

“No, answer me, Cody! I want to know why you think you aren’t allowed to learn how to grieve like the rest of us.”

“I don’t know!” Cody shouts in response. “I don’t know why! Maybe I just can’t-”

“No.”

“There’s just something wrong with me-”

“Try again.”

Cody growls in frustration.

“Come on, you know why.”

“No, I-”

“Yes, you do.”

“Boil-”

“You do.”

“No-”

“Come on, Cody!”

“ _Because I’m scared!_ ”

Every ounce of energy seems to slip from Cody’s muscles all at the same time. The tension is finally gone, along with the rigidity of keeping himself in perfect form. The carefully schooled expression, everything. He just slumps back into the cushion behind him, uncaring that it isn’t that soft or that it’s only just this side of comfortable. Every inch of him is trembling. His cheeks are soaked in the grit of salty tears. His breath is suddenly calm, if a little shallow.

Boil’s face softens. He lowers himself onto the spot next to Cody. He still doesn’t touch him, but he’s _there_.

“Of what?”

Cody shakes his head, searching for words. “I don’t know… I’m scared that, maybe, if I start letting it get to me, I’ll… I don’t know. I’m scared that if I start feeling, it won’t ever stop and I’ll just hurt forever…”

Boil nods in understanding.

“It does feel a little bit like that, sometimes,” he admits, his tone newly gentle. It’s an odd sound, coming from Boil. “But you know what General Kenobi told me?”

“What?” Cody asks as he rubs at one eye and continues not looking at his brother.

“He said that loss is like a wound. It hurts, sometimes for a long time. But after a while, it heals. And one day, it won’t hurt so bad. Allowing ourselves to grieve and mourn that loss is the only way to help the wound heal.”

Cody finally looks over at the other man again. Boil smiles softly, his eyes sad. Those brown eyes speak of the hurt Cody feels, too.

Cody just about laughs, still teary-eyed and sniffling. “Yeah, that sounds like General Kenobi.”

Boil breaths a little chuckle too. “It does, doesn’t it? Which is good, since he said it.”

Cody can’t help but laugh.

The silence they exist in for a moment isn’t oppressive. It’s calm and quiet - almost serene, in its own way.

“Do you want a hug, Cod’ika?” Boil offers, holding his arms out a little bit.

Cody snorts on a sob, the sound not even remotely attractive. But who care? It’s just Boil around to hear it, and that isn’t the worst thing in the world. He nods and leans into the man’s embrace, letting arms encircle him.

Boil’s voice is soft when he speaks into Cody’s hair. “It’s okay, _vod’ika_. It’s okay to feel bad sometimes. We won’t hurt forever. I promise.”

Cody nods with his face turned into Boil’s chest despite himself.

They stay that way for a few minutes. Finally, Cody heaves a bracing breath and sits up again. He smiles at his vod through his tear-stained face and thanks him. Then he pulls off several plates of his armor to get more comfortable. He slips to the floor with Boil and begins to work on his very first painting.

He puts it right where Boil decides to put his own paint. Despite the fact that he’s still scared and unsure that he has strength enough to move forward, Cody knows what he wants to put there. Right along the inside of his forearm sits a word in Mando’a.

_Mirjahaal._

Cody smiles at the word. It’s not perfect. The paint is a little sloppy and messy, and the letters weren’t quite even. But Boil takes a look at it and smiles. He promises that he can help touch it up so that it’s absolutely perfect if Cody wants.

So that’s what they do.

Cody smiles to himself the next morning when he puts on his armor.

Obi-Wan eyes the new painting with interest, blue eyes sparkling happily.

“What’s that?” he asks curiously, even though Cody’s pretty sure the man speaks Mando’a.

Cody looks up at him without commenting on it, though. He still hurts, and he thinks his eyes might be stinging a little bit. But it doesn’t hurt as much now. He doesn’t want to lock it away and throw away the key.

“It means healing,” he says softly. “Boil helped me pick it out.”

“Good. I like it,” Obi-Wan tells him with a soft smile. “It suits you, Cody.”

“Thank you, General.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I hope you liked it.
> 
> For anyone wondering, the _'ika_ tacked on at the end of names of _vod_ means little or younger. So it's used as a term of endearment. The word _mirjahaal_ means peace of mind or healing. It is a general term for emotional well-being especially after a trauma or bereavement.
> 
> Edit: Hi! I made a blog for this series! If you're interested, you can [find it here](https://obiwanthetherapistkenobi.tumblr.com/). Come say hi if you want!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Obi-Wan "the therapist" Kenobi under a kotatsu](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26861692) by [merryrogue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/merryrogue/pseuds/merryrogue)




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